“Magic”: When Brian May named the best musician he’s worked with outside of Queen
It’s a rarity unrivalled in classic rock: every member of Queen wrote a number one song.
That feat stands as testimony to how accomplished they were as a band. Each member was not only a master of their instrument, but they were also consummate composers who knew their way around the fine art of songwriting.
In many ways, you can hear that in their sound. Queen’s anthems are rarely linear, letting their hair down to their toes as searing imagination is allowed to roam, safe in the mind that as soon as things became stretched they could rein it back in and render the whole thing catchy enough to go down a storm.
This liberated outlook meant that members like Brian May were never afraid to take risks in any capacity. After all, the fuzzy-haired astrophysicist has cosied up to plenty of badgers, famous for their behanding jaws, and even stood on top of Buckingham Palace without a harness. In a musical sense, beyond Queen’s daring outlook, he has also never shirked the challenge of collaboration.
In 1983, with Queen’s star already ascended, he crafted a solo album under the banner of Brian May + Friends, titled Star Fleet Project. As a lover of expanding his outlook (proven by how often he gazes at the night sky), May wanted to work with as many of his contemporary heroes as possible, learning from them along the way.
On the Star Fleet album, he managed to work with Alan Gratzer of REO Speedwagon, the session legend Phil Chen, known for playing bass with the likes of Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, and Alice Cooper keyboardist Fred Mandel. But one artist stood out as not only the MVP of the Fleet force, but also the finest musician May has ever played with.
“He’s incredible,” May said in praise of Eddie Van Halen. “Like Jimi Hendrix, he took the guitar to a new place, he gave it an extra dimension, and millions of people have followed him.” With his unique hammer-on technique, like Hendrix before him, undoubtedly, Eddie was a purveyor of personality-filled guitar innovation.
Speaking personality, May figured that humility was part of his “magic” mix, too. “He was a wonderful guy to be around, too,” he said, “very innocent, very full of fun and light. He never seemed to try, nothing was ever difficult for him – he just had those magic fingers. We’d never worked together before Star Fleet, only hung out – it was really glorious to be around him and have those moments.”
The feeling was mutual, too. When discussing the cracker who came up with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, EVH was quick to make it known that he had long admired his work. In fact, the rocker told May that Van Halen had been covering ‘Now I’m Here’ since way back in 1974, when the British band were barely known in America.
So, even though Star Fleet might have been little more than a demo of a jam, the brief time that the impromptu supergroup spent working on it was enough for May to feel happily dismayed that even he had found someone out of his league.
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